Nebraska hospital officials: Ebola doctor still ‘extremely critical’

A surgeon who was transported to the U.S. for treatment after contracting Ebola in Sierra Leone was still in “extremely critical” condition Sunday, according to a Nebraska Medical Center spokesman.

LATEST: Surgeon Martin Salia dies of Ebola

No further details were immediately available on the patient, identified by the Church of the United Brethren in Christ as Dr. Martin Salia, 44.

Salia is a member of the church and was working as a surgeon at Kissy United Methodist Hospital in Freetown. He is a citizen of Sierra Leone and has family in the U.S., according to a church spokesman.

Salia’s wife, Isatu, 40, told the official news service of the Methodist Church that she was paying $200,000 to have her husband flown to the U.S. for care, and that she was trying to raise more to travel to Nebraska with the couple’s two sons, who are 12 and 20 years old. Isatu Salia, a U.S. citizen, lives in Maryland.

The doctor became the 10th patient in the U.S. to receive treatment for Ebola after he arrived in Nebraska on Saturday. The Nebraska Medical Center contains a specialized biocontainment unit and has successfully treated two other patients with Ebola.

On Sunday, officials with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Homeland Security announced that airline passengers traveling from Mali to the U.S. would be screened for Ebola.

Such measures have already been in place for travelers arriving from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. The measures were enacted after a Liberian man developed Ebola symptoms after flying to the U.S.

The move to screen the 15 to 20 passengers who arrive from Mali each day -- the majority of whom are American -- comes after a new cluster of Ebola cases has been reported in the country.

Two deaths from Ebola have been reported in Mali, according to the World Health Organization.

Mali shares a border with Guinea, and both Ebola cases were linked to travelers from Guinea, the WHO reported.

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